Leaving..... waiting
Arriving
Hello Friends,
We have begun the season of Advent which for many is a time for deep thought. Where I live on this globe it is cold, the dark comes early in the evening, and it is snowy. Cappuccino or hot tea weather for sure! In the Christian tradition, for those who follow the lectionary, it is a time of waiting for Jesus to be born. It seems to me that in this season of waiting, we are in the process of “leaving something” even if we aren’t aware of leaving and anticipating “arriving” even though we are not sure where the waiting will lead us. It may sound confusing. Maybe that is the idea, to shake up wonder and curiosity so the soul can deepen.
Leaving can be soul cleansing, a path to more freedom, AND it can also be a time of anxiety where we are waiting to experience what is next. What will arrival mean? Of course there are many times we leave and arrive in our lives. There are so many times we leave with uncertainty of what lies ahead. I think about when someone decides to leave the house they have been living in but don’t have a new one in contract yet. I think about those who have been in a church that no longer fits their theology. If they decide to leave, will there be another place where they will arrive feeling comfortable? I think about leaving a job and waiting to arrive at a new one with the anxiety of waiting to see what the new place will be like. Or being newly retired and not sure what it will be like after the “newness” of no schedule wears off. And, what about the very personal walk we all take, the waiting to arrive either to ourselves in a deeper meaningful way or arriving in the presence of the One greater than us.
As I have been thinking about this topic, I am reminded once again that leaving and arriving are actually the very same moment. Once you leave on a path, you really are not waiting, you are arriving in the very next moment. In every moment there is the possibility of change. And, when we set out on a path we may end up in a very different place than we anticipated. All that happens in those small unpredictable moments can alter our course. The thing is we are really never “arriving” to a final place. I invite you to wonder if we are always arriving, even beyond death.
May you find your arrival in Advent to land gently on your soul.
Jace
Traveller, your footsteps are the path and nothing else. Traveler, there is no path; you make the path by walking. Antonio Muchado
Please Call Me By My True Names
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow—
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am a mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am a frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am also the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up
and the door of my heart
could be left open,
the door of compassion.
Thich Nhat Hanh
from Please Call Me By My True Names The Collected Poems of Thich Nhat Hanh 
One Late Night
carrying out the trash
this, too,
a holy path
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer